<p>when applying to a law firm of some sort, does your undergrad school/GPA have ANY bearing? Or is it just your legal education that counts. </p>
<p>Dumb question but I'm just curious.</p>
<p>No, just the legal education.</p>
<p>I believe your legal education is the primary factor that firms look at. They don't seem to worry too much about undergrad experience or performance.</p>
<p>In my experience, the answer to your question depends on the type of job and the particular employer who is reviewing your credentials. For the rest of your life, your resume is going to contain information about the college and law school you attended. The fact is that for at least the first 5-6 years following graduation from law school, if you omit your GPA/class rank/other similar information from your resume, than it virtually guarantees that someone will ask you for that information during law firm/legal employer interviews. The more prestigious/difficult to obtain/generally concerned with credentials an employer is, the more likely that employer is to be concerned with your undergrad school and GPA.</p>
<p>Let's look at the situation that law firms often find themselves in when they interview law students for summer associate and (hopefully!) permanent positions. First, you are sitting in a conference/hotel/class room with an attorney from a hiring law firm for no more than 15 minutes. During that 15 minutes, that attorney must evaluate whether it is worth it for the law firm to fly you back to their offices, put you up in a hotel, feed you and take time away from his or her colleagues' busy schedules in order to give you a callback interview. Second, since you are in only your first semester of your 2L year during this interview, you have only one full year of law school grades to present to this interviewer. Third, the interviewing attorney is going to have to justify to his or her hiring committee why you should receive a callback, and one of the questions sure to be asked concerns your grades. There are even some firms that will ask for your LSAT scores! They are likely going to want to know how you did generally during college, particularly if your law school grades so far are not straight A's (or the equivalent). Finally, even if you don't reveal your actual GPA on your resume, many of your classmates will have different honors (cum laude, etc.) and other awards listed on their resumes, so the absence of awards or GPA information on your resume might send up alarm bells. </p>
<p>Realistically, while your law school grades are most important, other factors like undergrad GPA often creep into the evaluation of your employability.</p>
<p>This answer reflects my experience in lateral hiring. On occasion, I have clients who ask about undergraduate grades. One mid sized firm always requests transcripts from both undergrad and law school. Now and then, when I have a candidate who went to a prestigious law school but did not do as well as a firm would have liked, the firm will ask about undergraduate grades.</p>
<p>When I was a partner at a large law firm and did recruiting, we DID look at undergrad - school, GPA and course of study, especially when interviewing for summer associate positions where we didn't have a complete law school picture. Performance in law school was more important, but undergrad as well as prior work experience was relevant. The only time when I barely gave it a second glance was when I was looking at a seasoned lateral candidate, and then I was mostly concerned with on the job performance and experience. Law school, law school grades and especially undergrad moved more into the background at that point.</p>
<p>So I'm screwed if I don't go to an Ivy League school for undergrad :'(</p>
<p>No, that is not what people are saying. If you do well at schools other than Ivy League, you will be fine. The best thing for you to do is to choose an undergraduate school based on something other than planning for law school. Choose a place that you like, that offers majors interesting to you. Pursue areas that you enjoy and work hard, and if you decide to pursue law school, you'll be in good shape.</p>
<p>I agree completely with cartera's last post.</p>
<p>Also, if you are looking for a position as a patent attorney, the employer (law firm or corporation) will want to know about your performance in your science and/or engineering studies, especially if you do not have a Ph.D.</p>
<p>The last two sentences of Post #6 by mdoc is refreshing & reassuring. The first time that I interviewed with law firms was during my second year of law school while on law review. The firms never requested a college transcript, but college info. was on my resume.</p>